Sunday marks the anniversary of the September 4th Canterbury earthquake. If someone told me this time last year that within a year, I’d be living in Auckland, I’d have choked and died. I have never wanted to live in Auckland. Why? Because I always thought it was a rambling, urban sprawl with too much traffic and it turns out I was right. It does have some redeeming features though. An attractive harbour or two, serene beaches and lots and lots of things to do. Aucklanders are also a very friendly bunch. Apparently though, they are referred to as JAFAs by the rest of the country. JAFA = Just another fucking Aucklander. How did I not know this?
We are not enjoying the house hunting very much. Tomorrow we will view a house in Auckland that is probably a little expensive for us anyway, but is 100m2 with 2 bedrooms and sits on a section of 126m2. It’s not as though it’s a posh area either because the local primary school is decile 4. (Decile ratings are based on the incomes of parents of children at the school and the scale ranges from 1-10 with 1 the poorest and 10 the wealthiest).
The average sale price in the Auckland area for the quarter ending March 2011 was about $530,000. The suburb we are renting in, Point Chevalier, is ridiculously expensive with uninspiring and cramped townhouses demanding over $700,000. It is not all that close to the CBD either and it takes Ben about 55 minutes to get home from work. Apparently Auckland houses are less affordable than New York. Why do people live here?
Cantabrians were woken by a Mag. 4.9 at 3.29am this morning. This one was fairly close to the city and judging by the twitter feeds, felt bigger than it’s magnitude suggests and even knocked things off shelves.
**NB**Just want to make a correction here regarding decile rankings which are not exactly as I described. Instead they “indicate the extent to which the school draws its students from low socio-economic communities”.
rachel.blog 
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